Monday, April 30, 2012

According to Ghada Jabbour, Head of the Exploitation and Trafficking of Women Unit at KAFA, a Lebanese NGO highly involved in women’s rights and domestic workers issues, and an influential organizer of Sunday’s parade, the demands are clear.

“We want to abolish the sponsorship system that ties the domestic worker to the employer so that he or she can have control over the life and residency of the worker.

We also want migrant domestic workers to work under the Lebanese labor law so they can benefit from all the rights guaranteed by the law such as a decent living, vacations, termination of contract, minimum wage etc.,” she said

***As a clarification, we would like to remind that the parade and festival were not only organized by ARM but by a basket of organizations and people and they all ought to be thanked and supported. To name a few, all migrant community leaders, Migrant Community Center members, Kafa, Insan Association, PCAAM, Nasawiya with the support of SDC and DRC. Love to all.

In the statement printed on the flyer, the group said that a worker can change employers only if she obtains official and written consent from her current employer.

Employers may “lock the worker inside the house, prevent her from speaking with family, friends or neighbors and keep her passport and sometimes her salary to prevent her from leaving because they fear she will ‘run away.’”

The organization is asking the government to replace the sponsorship program with an alternative system, extend Lebanese labor law to domestic workers, and allow them to terminate contracts and change employers in a manner similar to other workers in the country.

They are also demanding an increase in the monitoring of recruitment agencies and the extension of social protection and methods of legal recourse to the workers.

Hundreds of Migrant Domestic Workers (MDW) and activists marched during a parade in Beirut calling to improve the MDW's situation.The Parade was followed by dancing festival the Migrant Domestic Workers from each countries performed.

Migrant Domestic Workers and activists carried banners and chanted calling to replace the sponsorship system with an alternative immigration scheme,extend the coverage of the Lebanese Labor law to domestic workers,ensure social protection and legal recourse for MDW's and increase monitoring of recruitment agencies.

The parade was followed by dancing festival at Monot,Beirut.Participants from Nepal, Ethiopia,Madagascar, Cameron,India, Sri Lanka and other countries performed each their folk dances.

Although the Labor Day protest advocated for improving the conditions of migrant workers, it was also a celebration of their home cultures which are very much alive here. Some participants wore traditional clothing, and drummers helped the parade-like atmosphere that put a smile on the face of many shopkeepers, onlookers, and the occasional police escort.

Yesterday, they walked bravely demanding to be freed from a form of slavery known as the “kafala” system.

This time they did not hide their faces, but went out on the streets carrying their flags and singing songs from their respective countries; walking proudly and lending color to the streets of Beirut, rejecting discrimination and demanding laws to protect them.

We thank all of these women who have made Workers’ Day an historic day, and have shown to the world that freedom is taken, not given.

The Anti-Racism movement staged a die-in next to the Lebanese Ministry of Labor to protest against the "sponsorship system" The "sponsorship system" leads to the death of one migrant domestic worker each week -- Photo: Hussein Baydoun

One more disappointing interview. What kind of language is this? Coming from a minister? Maybe we should do some obligatory human rights education training, like basics 101, for 'our politicians' before they assume their positions. This is too much.

Security threats always has to do with the stranger?

If this is the kind of person who is leading our ministry of interior and this is the kind od attitude he upholds, then we are not really heading in the right direction.

***

Lebanon’s Minister of Interior and Municipalities Marwan Charbel blames the rise in crime on a sudden influx of poor refugees, including Syrians and Iraqis. We blame the rise in racism and hatred towards the other on him and other ignorant spokespeople in this government.

But with 30,000 to 40,000 Syrians in Lebanon, crimes will definitely increase,” he adds.

“I am not speaking about a particular people. Those who come from Syria are poor."

"Most of those Iraqis were Christians. Here, I said it. Nobody can accuse me of being racist or sectarian.”

“Everyone knows how much I care for the prisoners and they are from different confessions. Most of those who benefited from the reduction in sentences in the last few weeks were Muslim. Some were not even Lebanese,” he insists.

Join us for a cultural parade and festival to celebrate Workers’ Day and demand change of the sponsorship system

Time and Date: Sunday, April 29, 2012 starting 11:30 am

Location: from Makhlouf Restaurant in Dora to St. Joseph Church in
Monot Street Organized by ARM/ Nasawiya, Insan, PCAAM, KAFA (enough)
Violence & Exploitation and several migrant community leaders With the support of DRC and SDC

Program: 1130 am-1 pm

Parade from Makhlouf Restaurant in Dora to St. Joseph Church in Monot Street

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

This Thursday evening, Nasawiya is hosting an interesting, long awaited discussion on ‘White’ (?) Savior Complex or Solidarity?'Fb event
***

In this discussion, we will focus on questions on 'the foreigner', the individual and the government and solidarity.

How do we ameliorate the unequal power dynamics in the relationship
between the ‘colonizer’ and the ‘colonized’ in the context of
humanitarian development, social activism, and human rights through
various NGOs and grassroots organizations, such as Nasawiya?

The purpose of the conversation is to explore and challenge issues of
imperial history, cultural hegemony, discrimination/racism [“north to
south” and “south to north”] , postcolonial feminism, universal (?)
feminism, and the politics of location. In the context of feminism/and
or women’s rights, how are feminists/activists united and divided? What
are specific roles ‘foreigners’ can and shouldtake to work towards the
goals of Nasawiya? Why? Ultimately the goal of this conversation is to
answer, what does solidarity between various feminist identities look
like in the context of Nasawiya?

Monday, April 23, 2012

Sponsorship
is a set of practices and regulations that legally ties migrant
domestic workers (MDWs) to one employer for their residence and work
permits for the duration of their contract. The sponsorship system makes
the employer responsible for the presence of the worker in Lebanon.

Problems of the sponsorship system

Migrant domestic workers LACKFREEDOM:

An MDW can change employers only if her current employer gives their official and written consent;

Employers
may violate the rights of MDWs because they interpret their
responsibility for workers to be ownership of them. They may lock the
worker inside the house, prevent her from speaking with family, friends
or neighbors and keep her passport and sometimes her salary to prevent
her from leaving, because they fear she will “run away”.

Sponsorship creates an UNEQUAL RELATIONSHIP between employers and MDWs

MDWs depend on their employers for their residence and work permits;

Employers can use this dependency to require workers to accept unfair working and living conditions.

Sponsorship can encourage ABUSE and EXPLOITATION of MDWs

Employers have control over the legal status of MDWs;

MDWs have a limited ability to protest violations or seek help.

What we want

Replace sponsorship system with an alternative immigration scheme

Extend the coverage of the Lebanese labor law to domestic workers;

Guarantee the right of MDWs to leave the house during time off and to live outside the employer’s house;

Allow MDWs to terminate contracts and change employers similarly to other workers in Lebanon;

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Lebanon failed Alem – as it does so many other workers. And now, in a
final indignity, her body still lies in the very hospital where she took
her own life a month ago. Her husband said he cannot work, as her
family has come from another village to wait and mourn. Chadi Mahfouz
has said he’s ready to facilitate her repatriation – but there appear to
be some bureaucratic hitches. Now Lamesa has one modest request: “I
just want her body back.”

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

"How can a country, which has endured so much recent pain through war,
civil strife, and foreign incursion, not recognize the humanity of
domestic workers like Alem?" I pondered while watching Mahfouz force her
into the car, while she kicked, pleaded and cried for help.

I
could not understand her words, but her cries were familiar -- they
sounded like our Lebanese neighbors' when she received news of her son's
death in 1987 during the civil war; or the sobs and whimpers of
orphaned children whose parents were massacred in Sabra and Shatila.

Yet
this time, we were the villains not the victims, which compelled me to
face-off with racism within my community, expose the systemic
dehumanization of domestic workers in Lebanon, and find avenues with
members of the Ethiopian community committed to fighting modern slavery
and pursuing justice for Alem.

Monday, April 16, 2012

An ongoing project documenting the lives of
migrant workers mostly in Lebanon. Initially I had focused on their
living spaces due to the fact that many live in small, claustrophobic
rooms while others have to do with make-shift dwellings. Stories of
maids sleeping under dining room tables or on kitchen floors are common.
Faced with abuse and racism by their employees, there are many cases of
suicides by migrant workers, specially live-in maids. A video recorded
by mobile phone was recently broadcasted on a local TV station where an
Ethiopian lady was being beaten and dragged by her hair into a car in
front of the Ethiopian Embassy by a man who owns a migrant worker
agency. The lady committed suicide the day after at the hospital she was
admitted to.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

“April
22nd 2012 is the Nepalese New Year; since this celebration is very
important, we have decided to celebrate it with the Nepalese community.
Join us so we can bring all the brothers and sisters together in this
wonderful event, in the hope for a better and a happier new year.”

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

And how does one explain the casual brutality of Ali Mahfouz? The agency system in Lebanon has always been corrupt and seriously lacking in regulation and transparency. The authoritarian and violent behavior of many of those operating placement agencies has been known and accepted for years. We know that recalcitrant workers can be returned to the agency for “corrective punishment” if the employers are unable or unwilling to do it themselves. And the financial exploitation of domestic workers by the agents, who take the first three months of their salaries, is scandalous and should be stopped, because it amounts to human trafficking.

It therefore kills me to read things like this and watching it slip
by as simply “yet another” example of the general idiocy that come with
“sponsoring” a maid today:

This lady thinks it’s a nightmare that she employed a maid and then a
pair of diamond earrings magically went missing. She admits herself
that there’s no proof of any wrongdoing on the maid’s part, but she
proceeded to “cancel” the maid anyways. “Cancel” and “buy” are words
that often replace “employ” as these individuals are viewed as nothing
more than a cheap vacuum cleaner that you need to beat up whenever it
stops working. Something goes missing? The vacuum cleaner probably
sucked it up.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

“If you try it once, you will not do it again” states Tayyeb.
“Whenever I advise a Sudanese who wants to come to Lebanon to get a
visa, they think I don’t want them to come here and make a living. But
it’s because I don’t want them to suffer like I did.”

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A United Nations independent expert today urged Lebanon to investigate the death of an Ethiopian migrant domestic worker who committed suicide days after being abused in the capital city of Beirut.

The abuse committed against Alem Dechasa, 33, was caught on video and posted on social media websites, showing the victim shouting and struggling to resist a man dragging and forcing her into a car in front of bystanders. Ms. Dechasa committed suicide on 14 March.

“Like many people around the world I watched the video of the physical abuse of Alem Dechasa on a Beirut street,” said the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery including its causes and consequences, Gulnara Shahinian. “I strongly urge the Lebanese authorities to carry out a full investigation into the circumstances leading to her death. I also express my deepest condolences to Ms. Dechasa’s family and friends.”

Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not United Nations staff, nor are they paid for their work.

Ms. Shahinian, who visited Lebanon last year, said Ms. Dechasa’s case is an example of the situation that many migrant women workers face in Lebanon.

“Women who had been victims of domestic servitude told me they had been under the absolute control of their employers through economic exploitation and suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse,” she said.

At the end of her visit to Lebanon in October, Ms. Shahinian urged the Government to enact legislation to protect some 200,000 domestic workers in the country, stressing that without legal protection some of them would end up living in domestic servitude.

“Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, the majority of whom are women, are legally invisible. That makes them acutely vulnerable,” the Special Rapporteur said, adding that States have an obligation to ensure the truth about violations is pursued to end impunity, protect human rights and provide redress to victims and their families.

Other UN independent human rights experts joined Ms. Shahinian’s call for a full investigation and the public disclosure of its results, including the Special Rapporteur on migrants, François Crépeau; the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo; and the Special Rapporteur on torture, cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Kate Denman is a British born researcher who has spent large periods
of her career working in Lebanon and Syria, focusing on issues of human
rights, social justice and equality. She co-founded an NGO, Refocus,
and is finalising her MA in Education, Gender and International
Development at the Institute of Education, London. Kate continues to
research social injustice and designs artistic educational programmes to
help raise awareness, understanding, and to facilitate social change.
Kate has compiled a remarkably thorough, original paper which
analyses the conditions for Overseas Domestic Workers (ODW) in Lebanon
as vast global disparities create a modern slave-trade where
post-industrialised economies opt for cheap imported labour. ODW come
from some of the poorest countries to work in Lebanon where they are
excluded from national labour laws. This results in limited available
protection and increased risk of exploitation and loss of freedom and
dignity.
The paper uses the Capabilities Approach, with specific focus on
Nussbaum’s list of capabilities, as a framework to explore the
constraints that ODW face. This includes their access to recourses and
their possibilities to convert their capabilities to valued functionings
and agency. An analysis is made of how national and international
policy is responding to these concerns in the Lebanese context. The
international analysis focuses on the UN anti-trafficking protocol,
CEDAW, authentic commitments made by Lebanon to the International Labour
Organization’s convention, and how the MDG’s and EFA goals are failing
to commit to adult education and equality.
The paper exposes the lack of legal protection available, how public
attitude is emulates national policy, the physical and psychological
violence experienced by ODW, forms of debt-bondage slavery and
contract-slavery, education and how the ethnic hierarchy has developed.
The main findings were as follows:

ODW in Lebanon are frequently being denied basic rights and capabilities which highly restrict valued functionings and agency.

Education for the ODW should be provided, not only to help them
understand their rights, but also give access to capabilities and
opportunities previously denied.

Pre-departure seminars in home countries need to be investigated.

The education of Lebanese children about ODW should be implemented.

To guarantee the implementation of international labour laws public
awareness needs to be raised regarding ODWs circumstances. Key
constituencies such as national labour officials, trade unions,
employers, media must join together to create governmental pressure.

In September 2011, the Migrant Center opened in Nabaa as a space for
women from migrant communities to meet and organize together. Now, a few
activists from Anti-Racism Movement have rented out a small space right
next to the Migrant Center and are turning it into a daycare center for
children of migrant women. There is a strong need for such a service
and it will be provided for free thanks to generous donations by members
and activists.

We need your help to equip and furnish the daycare center in
preparation for its official opening next month. Here is a list of the
things we need. If you can donate these, please contact talj.jina@gmail.com

TV / DVD

Air Conditioner

Playing mats for the floor

Kids’ toys

Kids’ tables & chairs

Kids’ books & educational material

Kids’ DVDs, CDs, and entertainment

Kitchen utensils

Other things you can think of that kids in a daycare center would enjoy (tentative age range is 5 – 8 years old)

Alem Dechassa was a 33-year old Ethiopian domestic worker in Lebanon.
Her suffering has restarted the tired debate on the rights of migrant
workers in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world. Two weeks ago, a video surfaced
online showing Dechassa being abused outside the Ethiopian consulate in
Beirut. For over a minute we watch Dechassa callously kicked, beaten
and dragged by her hair. Eventually she’s forced into a black BMW. As
she cries out helplessly, she’s ordered to shut up. The chorus of
onlookers do little to help her. They implore the man beating her to
leave her alone. No one ventures to help her. No one ventures to
intercede for this woman. We wonder what further punishment awaits her
as she is stuffed like a lifeless doll into the back seat of the car. We
wonder what is her crime.